I could hear a low murmur of voices, the heated, protesting voice of the grave guardian, the low warning tones of the Baron and the nervous voice of the half-forgotten fleet-footed ghoul. My vision was blurred, edged in gold from the light at the doorway and tormented with dreamed up images of a beautiful woman dancing in an ancient temple while her equally beautiful twin brother watched along and laughed. When the fleet-footed ghoul mentioned Kent I tried to make myself pay attention. It was difficult as coming back to reality meant returning to the boils that burned and throbbed at my back, the sweat that made my skin sticky and the tightness of my throat.

I was imprisoned beneath several blankets and duvets, doomed to roast alive. I tried to shift some of the smothering quilts off me but they were too heavy and I too weak.

"Rest young one," master spoke sternly from my right, "you need the heat to burn out the illness. An old-fashioned method I'll admit but it will help a little. Straining your ears will not help you," he added.

I glanced his way. Beckett was sitting on an old-fashioned, red chair with one leg crossed over the other looking as casual as he probably could, coat and hat gone, dark hair free and shirt loose. He had balancing on his leg an open book that bore dinosaurs on its cover. I looked to the book hopefully and only then became conscious of Percy my Brontosaurus companion snuggled up beside me.

I felt ill and loathed it, it had not been so long since I had been poisoned with Tzimisce blood and now here I was poisoned again by vampires. I coughed and winced as the coughing continued, racking through my chest and burning up my throat. When it subsided I suddenly found Isaac before me with his usual concerned amber gaze. He had come with that unnatural Toreador speed of his. Suddenly I was sat up upright, propped against a pillow and found Isaac's hand pressing a damp cloth against my brow whilst his other hand offered up a cup of some questionable substance.

"It's my blood," Beckett explained in his usual dry tone.

I parted my lips and reached out for the cup with my right hand. I drank its contents quickly, ready to savour master's blood but it tasted thick and cold on the tongue and was slow in offering me any relief.

Isaac took the empty cup away and began dabbing around my sweat soaked face with the cloth.

"What about Kent?" I queried as I looked at Isaac hopefully.

Isaac tensed and frowned. "Romero brought someone who has word of him," he answered coolly.

"The prince's ghoul," I said hoarsely, "Marcurio."

Isaac's frown deepened as he looked at me suspiciously.

"She heard you through the door Isaac, you weren't entirely subtle," Beckett informed him brightly. "Perhaps public corridors are not the place for guarded conversations."

"I'm going to go with Romero and this Marcurio to get Kent," Isaac informed me. "Your brother and Damsel were able to find Heather and Yukie earlier this evening. Heather is quite shaken up, probably a side effect from being without Kent's blood for five nights but Yukie was calm. She told us you were at a party in The Empire Arms, that there was danger there, Kindred. She said it was difficult to remember things but she knows they were in danger and that Kent gave himself up for them."

I sighed miserably, how very dramatic and foolish of him. "What happened to him?" I queried worriedly.

Isaac extended a hand to brush against my lank, sweat soaked hair. "I don't know yet, I'm still not certain what's happened to you either. I'll bring him back and we will sort this mess out together." He pulled back and looked at Beckett this time. "Can I trust you to keep her safe?"

Beckett gave a small smile. "Can you Isaac? Do I not detect the brother and Brujah den mother downstairs?"

I couldn't see it but I knew Isaac was frowning again. "We don't know who these plague bearers are or if they will try to take her again," he murmured, "I'd rather keep her safe and your companion is still insisting on draining her blood," he added crossly.

"I won't let him harm her," Beckett assured. "Go, find your Toreador and I will keep her company."

Isaac sighed and turned his attention back to me. "I will be as quick as I can."

"Just get Kent," I said pleadingly, "make him safe."

Isaac nodded back sombrely before he rose and departed from me, taking the damp cloth with him.

At Beckett's gentle command I settled once more and attempted sleep, lulled into a dull semi-consciousness by the sound of his droll voice reading to me about dinosaurs. It was a text book, equal parts boring and interesting, I tuned out the big words and only paid attention when he talked about the size of the dinosaurs or how they hunted prey.

There was music, pipes and harps and someone singing in a high, sweet voice. Soft, amber flames filled the room and in the centre she danced. Tall, proud, beautiful Toreador, the maiden of an ancient world. Equal parts innocent and seductive, she could use her charm to portray whatever they wanted- the sweet virgin, the sultry seducer, the intelligent queen, or the humble maid ripe for corruption. All they had to do was name their desire. None could completely have her however except for him, it was why she was as hated as much as she was desired, why she was always in danger and forever pursued. It was why they made him mad, their jealously knew no bounds, they hated the bond he had with her, a bond they would never know, and helped drive him to madness for it.

There was a sombre faced king on a throne watching her with enchantment, old eyes in a young face, desiring, possessive, passionate and rage filled. He wanted her above all others but he knew she could never completely accept him, he knew there was a side of her that loathed his beast. He knew she judged him, he judged himself didn't he, unworthy of her beauty, too much a monster for her. He was unwilling to believe she could see past that and in his anger he was ready to curse her for it.

A young man sat clapping and jeering along to her dancing, loud and jovial, a stark contrast to the others' watchful silence. He was as enraptured by her as all the others but it did not drive him to dark thoughts of possession, he was safe in the knowledge that she would always come to him. He had her dark hair though his was messy, his looks were attractive but chaotic, his grin uneven and his eyes unnatural, one turquoise and one hazel, one watching one world and one watching another.

They were both guests of the court, both wary of the trap and yet when the betrayal would come they would both fail to spy it until it was too late. Young, beautiful mortals so unaware of the dark destiny ahead of them. They wanted only fun and laughter now but soon the king would offer them other things- power, wealth, immortality, he would whisper false promises to them in a desire to keep them in his court, to keep her dancing for him and her twin laughing. Part of him wanted everything to stay as it was forever but another part of him, the lusting side, wanted to have her fully in body, mind and soul, to make her his new queen.

"The Ninth Circle," I heard Bishop Vick murmur from behind me as his cold hands slipped over my shoulders. "The more corruption we spread, the more we infect and sacrifice, the closer we get to it."

I was startled from my dream by Beckett's gentle shake. "You were shouting young one," he informed me calmly.

My symptoms, banished by my dream, overwhelmed me in a wave of sickness. I moaned as my head burned and sweated anew and my stomach churned and threatened to bring up bile.

"You mentioned the dead in the desert," Beckett commented curiously.

"In the long sleep," I murmured tiredly, "but even in dreams she dances."

I could hear voices again, so many, many voices. Tempers were short in the air, two leaders were trading angry words and idle threats. I pushed angrily against my covers and finally freed myself of them.

Beckett sighed scornfully as I pushed myself upright and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. "I should order you back to bed," he murmured, "but I do not like to exploit our bond and I think perhaps you might be the only one who will save Isaac from saying something foolish and ensuring none of you get any help. The Anarchs are always so damningly stubborn," he mused, "but so are the Camarilla, how silly for everyone to be so similar and yet so consistently at odds."

I staggered to my feet with a groan as everything swayed. I was relieved when Beckett snatched out a gloved hand to grip my left arm and steady my balance.

"I suppose I should accompany you," he remarked dryly, "although I suspect Isaac will only blame me for your being out of bed." He stood and looked at me with a pitying red gaze. "Staying in bed will do you no good, this is no normal illness to be treated with bed rest. Still, when Strauss sees you are mortal...I wonder at Isaac's love for you, he risks exposure of your mortality in an effort to save you, how perfectly Toreador I suppose." Beckett let out a sardonic chortle at this before escorting me to the door.

I looked up at Beckett wonderingly before we stepped outside to a dark corridor. "You have a soft spot for the mad ones," I murmured.

Beckett frowned. "I wonder, is that speculation on your part or a glimpse given with your mad insight?"

"They have been family to you, am I family too master?" I queried hopefully.

Beckett smiled down at me. "Young one I am displeased when misfortune befalls you, the fact that any discomforts to your existence should bother me at all is annoying and surprising but it is the truth. If I did not have concerns for you I would not spend my time reading to you about dinosaurs so you would sleep better. You may have some hidden insight to Aralu but Anatole holds the map, if I had no feelings for you I would chance a departure with him to seek this desert that holds the sleeping immortals."

I smiled. "So yes, family," I surmised.

We headed downstairs slowly, I laboured with pains and tormented with coughs that prevented any chance of me sneaking subtly. Through a shut door I heard the angry voices of Strauss and Isaac throw blame at one another.

"Look at him, he is one bite away from a Masquerade violation," the wizard king remarked.

I reached for the door, pushed it open and stepped through slowly to glimpse a horrifying sight.

Handsome Kent was now a wretched looking creature, his skin bore an ugly blue hue to it, bloody sores stained the corners of his mouth and bruising shadowed his eyes. His clothes were tatters, his jacket gone, his shirt as if someone had torn it open to expose more bloody sores, his trousers were sloppy, the buttons undone, and his shoes and socks missing. He hugged the wall, shrunken back from the blood wizard until he laid his tortured grey gaze upon me. He winced at my ill sight and a sob tore through him. "You were meant to be safe," he said hoarsely, "she swore you would all go free." He bowed his head in grief and shook it.

"Why have you let her come down here?" Isaac snapped at Beckett angrily.

"Keeping her in bed will not help her," Beckett answered calmly.

Isaac's amber gaze darted to the Tremere whose focus was now on me. He was Maximillian Strauss, Max to his friends so very much Mr. Strauss to me. He was a bald, fair skinned man turned a little later in life much like Beckett and Isaac. His dress code of a blood red trenchcoat, a maroon shirt, dark green tie, olive green waistcoat with gold trim, dark brown trousers and the most marvellous circular, amber tinted spectacles all but screamed modern day steampunk magician. Like many Tremere he had a health dose of arrogance and superiority and like all Camarilla he believed in law and order and had a certain lust for power.

Strauss' pale gaze fell upon me, narrowing in suspicion before realisation filled it. The magician would not be tricked. "You are human, how is that possible?" He looked from me to Isaac once more. "She betrayed me to you, I thought on a childish whim or perhaps because of those voices that plague the Malkavians but no, what is this Isaac? You called me here to say you had friends infected by the plague-bearers." He gestured with one gloved hand to Kent who remained sobbing hoarsely against the wall. "I thought you meant the Toreador but a mortal too? A Kindred turned ghoul, I do not recognise this dark magic, what is it?" His voice was calm though edged with anger as his eyes burned with an impatient thirst for knowledge.

"No iron crown yet," I remarked weakly as I moved to lean against a bookshelf for support. Beckett released my hand to let me go. It put me a little closer to Kent who kept his gaze on the ground. "What happened poet?" I queried sympathetically.

"I shouldn't have brought you there," Kent murmured feverishly to the carpet, "any of you, it was so reckless. A party, I was bored, now I'm paying for that but you shouldn't be, she swore, God she swore! Me for all you, sent you away, she promised." He shuddered. "I'm dirty now kid, inside and out, I can't ever get clean, such a sickness and all I can do is spread it, God it's so ugly, I'm ugly with it!" He grasped at his messy hair with both hands and let out a pained shriek.

"Kent be still," Isaac bid him gently with a hint of his powerful presence trickling into his voice. I felt the power of it, the Toreador gift to entrance and allure, to make others obsess over them until there was nothing else, to enchant them to the point that they would come at at a summon no matter the hour, no matter what other duties they had or who else they might have to attend. It was a deadly gift often underestimated by many fools. I thought again of the dancing beauty in the desert who had charmed the snake to awake and strike at me, such a lure that could cross across a vast distance and still work.

Kent whimpered and crouched in against himself. "I'm so thirsty," he moaned, "it's never satiated but if I feed I infect."

"When did he last feed?" Strauss demanded angrily. "When did he become like this? When did she?" He gestured to me this time. "She turns mortal, a gift we might all have a chance at, and already it is squandered on illness."

"She did not become sick on purpose you pompous Camarilla slave!" Isaac retorted hotly. "I know you Max, your expertise is blood magic, you must know of a cure for this!"

I winced to hear the desperation in Isaac's voice, not quite buried beneath the rage. I tried to look to him but my vision blurred and the room swayed a little. I clutched at the bookshelf with both hands, pressing my heated face against its smooth surface hoping for some kind of relief.

"Even if I had such a cure why would I share it with you?" Strauss queried coolly as he folded his arms. "You're an Anarch, a disorganised danger to yourself and to the Camarilla and you leaped at a chance to humiliate me which posed a grave risk to us all at a time when the Camarilla was weak."

"Do you mean that walking block of stone?" Isaac sneered back. "That you unleashed in my territory and failed to take responsibility for? All I did was ensure you took credit for your mistake and that was after I cleaned it up!"

I looked from one to the other, blinking the wetness from my eyes as I tried to get a focus on them. This childlike yelling was most curious. "Is there a history between the blood king and the Baron?" I wondered aloud.

They paused and both looked to me simultaneously, Isaac almost embarrassed and Strauss slightly miffed.

"Past or not this yelling is tiresome," Beckett remarked dryly. "Max, Isaac came to you openly before this plague-bearer trouble reached us, he is not here for war and as a member of the Camarilla you should want to to stop this plague-bearer problem before the Kine start to realise it is not simply a new disease amongst them. We've seen the Hazmat people on the street, it will not take them long to realise there is a supernatural origin to it all."

Strauss stiffened at Beckett's words and looked at Isaac angrily again. "You made no effort to keep my secret why should I keep yours?"

"And what is mine?" Isaac retorted heatedly.

Strauss pointed at me again, I was getting terribly annoyed with being gestured to like an exhibition. "She is Isaac, you are in love with her, a vampire turned mortal, a drama worthy of a Toreador but a danger to the Camarilla, there are many who would take her head without question for knowing all that she does. There are many who would hurt her just for revenge too I'm sure," he added with a narrowed, scolding gaze at me.

"I can offer you something for your silence," Isaac retorted calmly.

"No!" Kent protested suddenly. He moved from the wall in a sudden blur, moving to kneel at Isaac's feet and grasp at his knees tightly. "You can't, please!"

I wondered at the dramatics as I found myself sliding to the ground in a fit of coughing.

"Kent you despise him," Isaac said sharply, "and he is certainly not worth Ariadne's safety."

"Isaac don't," Kent groaned, "he helped me, I hate it, I hate admitting it, I hate that it happened but fuck I'd have infected and killed so many if he hadn't stopped me. They starved me for three nights, starved me and..." He paused and whimpered again. "Isaac don't do this, don't."

"Isaac," I addressed him softly, my voice weak and barely audible from coughing, "please don't. Whatever you know, whatever you're going to do, don't. It will hurt Kent and I don't want him hurt for my safety." I coughed again, groaning in pain as blood speckled the phlegm this time. "I'd rather not pay that price for life. Maybe if I die I'll have peace from the mad master and the four in the desert, I see the Aralu all the time now, it doesn't stop and I want it to."

"Ariadne don't talk like that," Isaac begged.

"Aralu?" Strauss quipped sharply.

"Oh good let's tell a Tremere about antediluvians in slumber, that's never gone awry," Beckett commented sardonically.

Strauss came to stand before me but was blocked by Isaac who moved quicker. My Baron stood firm before me, my unfailing shield.

"The Aralu are legend, what do you know of them? What does a Kine know of them?" Strauss demanded.

"She is more than a Kine," Isaac replied defensively.

"Right a Ghoul and whose Ghoul is she? I know you Isaac you wouldn't have the heart to do that to her, then you would always have to wonder if her love for you was real."

I glanced round Isaac to look up at Strauss curiously, he made it sound like he had a past with Isaac. My head throbbed, my nose was running and every muscle ached and yet I did not want to be anywhere else right now.

"My Ghoul," Beckett answered with his usual deadpan calmness, "and she is not long for this world. I have helped you in the past Max, do you know of a cure for her or Kent?"

"Nothing proved yet," Strauss confessed, "I have had no plague-bearer subject to test upon and the mortal victims have been too ill."

"You have a potential cure then," Beckett surmised in a tired tone.

"The sickness is blood based," Strauss explained, "and we are experts in Thaumaturgy, for the mortal a blood transfusion, it is a matter of draining out the sick blood and replacing it with clean blood but for the vampire it is more complex. Truthfully without a plague-bearer to question or at the very least inspect it is difficult to know."

"You must try," Isaac compelled him.

"Must I?" Strauss queried savagely. "You've given me nothing Isaac and taken plenty."

"I'm sorry about Velvet but it was over ten years ago!" Isaac snapped, surprising us all with a sudden loss of temper.

"Not so long for our kind," Strauss replied bitterly. "Not so long that I will forgive or help you or another Anarch whelp or a woman who poses such a danger to the Camarilla."

"I will give you LaCroix," Isaac stated calmly.

I was stunned, this popcorn drama had me enraptured and was a welcome distraction from the migraine I was developing.

"NO!" Kent bellowed as he hastened to Isaac again, tears streaming down in his eyes as he stumbled. My poor poet was traumatised and half-mad with disease.

"I suspected that he survived," Strauss murmured. "Very well Isaac, give me LaCroix and one of these plague-bearers and I will give you my word that I will do everything in my power to see these two cured."

"Your word Max," Isaac said firmly as he ignored Kent, "not the word of the Regent or a Camarilla prince in the making, your word."

Strauss tugged off the glove from his right hand and extended his bare palm to Isaac. "You have my word."

Isaac accepted his hand and they shook whilst Kent quivered and sobbed on the floor. I crept around Isaac to console Kent and reached out a hand to rub the Toreador's back. He jerked back sharply with a violent hiss, recoiling to the wall in a blur. "Don't touch me," he snarled, "no one touch me again!"

I looked at Kent with woe. "I mean to help," I said quietly, "we are sick together Kent." I hugged my torso tight as it groaned in pain. "Together Kent, please," I pleaded as my brow sweated and bloody coughs racked through me again.

"Come Ariadne," Beckett bid me, "you grow worse again, I will give you a little of my blood, then I must feed."

"Kent," I called to the dark haired poet hopefully but he ignored me.

Isaac drew me up to my feet and handed me over to Beckett. "Take her back upstairs," he remarked wearily.

Too sore and tired to disobey I allowed Beckett to escort me out of the room and back to the bedroom. With tears and reluctance I took Beckett's blood from a cup again as a direct drainage from him could not be risked lest I contaminate him. I lay back down with Percy as Beckett, with a half-smile and a hint of pity in his blazing carmine eyes told me a new story about Bill the Allosaurus.

So does this answer some questions or create more? I have a soft spot for the Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle, I quite feel sorry for them especially Bishop Vick. I tried finding out more about the Ninth Circle but I couldn't get much so I've gone my own way with it.

Hurray for Strauss, he finally makes an appearance in this fanfic world! I love the insults Max and Isaac make about each other in the game when it comes to the gargoyle business, Isaac is so childish and petty laughing, spreading the truth of it all over town like gossip just to humiliate Strauss. I mean yeah Strauss is Camarilla and all but it's not like Isaac is above having the Camarilla/Tremere creation for an ally. Then you have Strauss ignorantly blaming the Anarchs for the plague-bearers and saying that most of them are mere children. Anyway, I decided all this pettiness should have something beyond mere Camarilla/Anarch rivalries and I noticed that at the beginning of the game in the theatre when everyone gathers to see the player's sire get executed you see V.V blowing a kiss to Strauss so I just took it from there.

I find Beckett the hardest to write, hope I'm doing him justice!

As always thanks for all the lovely reviews, they are very much appreciated and please keep them coming!